Squats, deadlifts and presses are excellent exercises to gain strength and muscle. So are the olympic lifts, kettlebells and so on. Also bodyweight training is powerful. Everybody knows push-ups and pull-ups. But only very few do or know hand walking. Although this is one of the best training methods to strengthen the upper-body in a very unique way. Many of the old-timers did it beside their hard work. One of my friends grandfather, who was a hard-working farmer, told me, that he was hand-walking on the rafters often when was working in the barn. Just for fun, he said. His hands were huge, his fingers thick and his forearm full of veins.

Imagine this: How powerful would your upper-body be, when you walk one day on your hands instead with your feet. But what are the good things about hand walking:

- you can do it in fresh air at playgrounds, monkey bars or if you don’t have access, do it on a pull-up-bar, as it is shown in my video Part I. I hand-walked everywhere, on the beach in Venice as also at my garage at home or at some trees in the wood.

- It strengthens your body in an athletic way, like also for example olympic lifts do. All your muscles have to work together to make the movement. It hits your arms, your back, your core very extremely.

- You move your body in a natural way. As a kid you did the same stuff without knowing that you train your body. Don’t look at playgrounds as they are for children only. They are also great for you.

- You gain plenty of pulling- and grip-strength with it. I was able to close a COC 2-Gripper after exercising a few weeks with hand walking and also rope climbing.

- When you do it for time, it also has a cardiovascular effect on your system. You are breathing heavy after two minutes of permanent hand walking on a difficult set.

- It is simply fun to do, more fun than just doing pull-ups

My training-comrade Karl – who is a former bench press competitor and whose right leg got amputated after a terrible work accident - became very strong doing hand-walking only in his training. He doesn’t touch weights since a few months but he is strong and powerful like never before. His hands and back look freakish, his pulling strength is unbelieveable and he gained also some useful pounds of muscle. He built a whole climbing street at the back of his house, because he fell in love with this uncommon type of training ((watch Video of him performing there). Did this cost him a lot? No, only some work! He built this street with old ladders, some cheap playground rings and lots of wooden bars. His pull-up-numbers skyrocketed since then, he can do difficult rafter pull-ups and his grip is terrible. Handshakes with Karl are definitely no fun J

But how would a training session using hand-walking look like? You don’t need to complicate it. Just do it as a finisher of a normal workout. A good thing is to do it for time. Walk 30 seconds on a bar, playground beam, pole or anything else, then rest. Repeat it three or four times. Another option is to do a whole session with hand-walking only. Just mix in different things. First do it in normal style, then switch arms in another way (see Video Part II) and if you are already high-skilled, you can jump (as you will see in Video Part III). Karl trains in GTG-Style. He walks the bars and ladders nearly every day, but never to complete failure. „I often do it in the morning or when I put out the garbage. I cannot only walk by the climbing station without using it“, smiles Karl.

One word of attention: Take care of your elbows, never hang loose, always warm-up good and don’t overdo it in the beginning. This is very raw, powerful training and hits your body very hard. If you do it right, you will gain a lot! But do it right!

In my soon released DVD „Gorilla Camp“, which is available already in german, I will show you a lot more options to get gorilla-strength. Stay tuned for more! And don’t forget to watch the video-parts of hand-walking. I will post some more in the next few days.

Give this training method a chance, you will see a difference soon in your upper-body-strength and also your physique. Or did you ever see a gorilla, that is not strong and fast?

In strength&health or as the old miners say in my part of austria „Glück Auf“,